All day long they’re saying, hoh ah
Hoh ah, hoh ah, hoh ah
Sam Cooke
First, my apologies for not writing yesterday. It was a looooooong day of doing things and by the time I sat down with a glass of whiskey in hand I decided there was no way I was going to be using my brain any more. So, to begin today, I’ll go back to yesterday morning.
I woke up way too early, 4:30 AM. I don’t know if it’s that I’m still making the adjustment to Mountain Time, or that I’m still waking up on a school schedule, or that I’ve been traveling, but I’m ready to start sleeping until a decent time any morning now. I laid awake, trying to sleep, for an hour and a half before deciding it was sufficiently late to get up. It was probably for the best since I needed to be in Durango as early as possible anyway. I poured myself two travel mugs of coffee and set off. My first stops of the day were Absolute Bakery for a muffin and the Mancos gas station. Then it was straight on to Durango.
It’s only possible to make running errands so exciting so I’ll just hit the highlights. The first stop was Home Depot to pick up a few things that I couldn’t get from their wesite and/or realized I needed after placing my order. Then on to Bookcase and Barber where I did not get a cocktail, but did get a haircut. There were quick stops at the liquor store for triple sec and Albertsons for everything else and one final stop at Torterria La Flor for tortillas.
While waiting for my haircut I got a call from a very nervous wood delivery guy. I had been told that the delivery would come in the afternoon and told him so in my own surprise to recieve the call. That only made him more nervous. He seemed convinced that he had the wrong house and insisted on describing every aspect of it. I reassured him he had the right place and then added a few more details he hadn’t mentioned just to reassure him. I’m happy to report that when I returned home there was a pile of wood right where I expected it.
After returning home I had some lunch and began attacking the list of chores I had for the afternoon. All of them are too uninteresting to mention, but they took forever. Around 7 I decided that I’d done enough for the day and made myself a bufffalo chicken salad and curly fries for dinner. Then I sent a pic of the curly fries home to stir up a little jealousy, but recieved a pic back of the salad Zoe had made and was put to shame. As I mentioned I did end the day on the deck with a glass of whiskey in hand so the day wasn’t a total loss.
Today was just as busy, actually probably even more physically demanding, but for some reason I’m not nearly as drained. Maybe it’s the hard cidar at my side or the perfect teperature in the shade here my my rocking chair at Esoterra as the band warms up.
This morning I was finally able to start on mmy first construction project – a work bench in the garage. I made it all the way to step 1B, which probably doesn’t sound all that impressive, but doesn’t account for the time spent cleaning the garage or learning how to use a miter saw (I even still have all fingers intact).
After having some lunch and cleaning up with a shower I headed out for my next big event of the day – volunteering to help with setup for the Dolores River Festival. I somehow found out about the opportunity a couple months ago and decided that I might as well try to do something to help the community. The free admission, T-shirt, and beer didn’t hurt either.
My experience with setting up farmer’s market tents paid off immediately as I was pretty sure I was the only person there who had ever put one together before. Then there was an odd detour into stage decoration. I self-opted out of that as quickly as I politely could and spent most of the rest of my time setting up fencing and bigger tents. After setting up the last of the fences I headed to Esoterra Cidery in Dolores for the official pre-party where I’m now writing this from. It’s a place that I’ve been wanting to come for a while now and was really jealous that Molly got to come when she was here a few weeks ago.
It’s absolutely hopping here tonight with an interesting mix of people who are volunteering for the festival in some way, people from Dolores, people from Telluride, and tourists. I was a bit aprehensive about coming since I wasn’t a big fan of the cidar at the last cidary I was at. When I stepped up to the bar I told the cidarist that I didn’t like cidar but that I wanted to. She asked about when I do drink and poured me a few samples. The one that I settled on is a bourbon barrell aged dry cidar that I’m actually enjoying! The food truck that seems to be permanantly parked here is putting out some great looking pizzas as well as the delicious cheese board that I had for dinner. Although I wish Molly had been here to eat the olives for me. I feel a little bad leaving them on the board, but not bad enough to eat them.
I’m planning on hanging out here foor a little while longer to hear the band that starts about 15 minutes from now, but undoubedly the tiredness will hit me soon.
